33
SERENA
It wasn’t the best plan in the world. But it was still a plan, and it was way better than nothing.
The smell grew stronger as I delved deeper into the earth, holding the flashlight out before me. It was black down here. Pitch black and dank as hell, with water dripping constantly from the ceiling and making it feel like bugs were crawling through my hair.
Broderick had left me half a dozen corridors ago, with strict and specific instructions on which passages to take to reach my goal. Under normal circumstances I would’ve stayed glued to his side, but somehow he’d convinced me that splitting up was the best option. For him, for Damien… for us.
Us.
Besides, the place he’d sent me? It was the very place I had to go. The place the Order was interested in, because it was their very place of origin.
The vault.
Thought to be gone forever, the idea of recovering even some of the Order’s lost knowledge had driven Xiomara and the entire Council into a frenzy. But as I got deeper, I wondered if it were even possible. The chambers down here were so dark and dingy, so waterlogged and blackened by fire that whatever might’ve once been down here had to be destroyed.
And then I saw it.
It was a door. An ancient, iron-banded door with a sigil carved halfway up, dead center.
The eye!
It was worn smooth. Broken in places, and barely legible. Slowly, reverently, I traced the circle that encapsulated the triangles. Ran my thumb over the crescent moon…
The door creaked open.
What I saw beyond it took my breath away.
It was the Paris vault; exactly as it had been described in the oldest texts of the Library! I saw row after row of decaying books, set against splintering, swollen bookshelves that lay drunkenly against one another. More than half of them had collapsed, creating a domino effect that ended in a pool of sinister brown water. The water formed a lake that took up half the room.
“Holy shit…”
My voice fell flat against the endless waterlogged volumes. I stepped forward and nearly slid; not only had the bookcases fallen over, but the floor itself was on a fairly steep angle. It looked almost like an optical illusion, until I turned my head back to the corridor I’d just left and realized something:
The entire chamber was collapsing.
Divided by great stone arches, the arced ceiling looked sagging and pregnant. Like it could come down at any moment, even as a voice in the back of my mind reminded me it had already stood for a thousand years.
Carefully, I made my way over. By watching where I stepped, and by leaning with the angle of the floor, I managed to reach the first bookcase.
I pulled on a book, and its cover broke immediately away. Beneath it the pages were mush. Illegible. Unreadable…
Damn.
Not discouraged, I looked up and saw that the top row of the ancient tomes seemed slimmer and more defined. They’d been in the water less. Seen less damage.
I grabbed one and opened it. I could see everything, every word. Every sketch and diagram and description. Every letter, squiggled on parchment by some long-lost quill dragged through the darkest ink…
And there were hundreds of these books. Maybe thousands. Most would be illegible, but a good chunk of them could be salvaged. Recovered.
Centuries’ worth of knowledge — once thought lost — regained and re-transcribed. All because of me, and Damien, and Broderick…
“HOLY SHIT!”
It was amazing. It was incredible. It was everything the Order had hoped it would—
“Holy shit indeed.”
The voice was feminine, but way too sickly sweet. The tone was sardonic and biting. It belonged to someone with… malice.
“Too bad you won’t get to read any of it.”
On the other side of the chamber, a woman stepped into view. She had red hair and white skin, her mouth a thin, unwavering line drawn from cheek to cheek. Even half-shrouded in shadow, I knew who it was.
“Hello Karessa.”
I was biding my time, sizing her up. If what Broderick and Damien told me was true, she was more dangerous than anything else.
“Is this why you came?” she asked mockingly. She snatched a volume from a nearby shelf and scoffed as it fell apart in her hands. “For a moldy pile of ink-smeared books?”
She was stepping softly, on an angle. But still moving in my direction. Still closing the distance.
“Did you tell them you loved them?” she asked. “Is that how you got them to bring you here?”
I shrugged, noncommittally. “The better question would be do you honestly care?”
Her face crossed with anger. I’d touched a nerve.
“Of course I care! They were my—”
“Or are we entertaining all these lame theatrics,” I cut her off, “just because you got scorned?”
I wanted her off balance. Wanted her angry, even out of control.
She practically turned purple.
“You know the whole thing sounds really pitiful,” I said, “trying to grasp onto something that’s no longer yours. Holding onto your ex lovers’ totems like some sort of desperate prize, in the childlike hopes that they’ll come running back to you.”
Her eyes flared. Her mouth curled back in a snarl. I could see her shaking… her entire body shuddering in gruesome, unnatural ways.
The metamorphosis couldn’t be far off.
“You’re like some adolescent schoolgirl,” I actually laughed. “One with—”
Karessa charged. Charged me in human form, even as her limbs extended outward and broke hideously free of their skin.
Hold steady…
I choked back my emotions as her clothes ripped away, her face extruding itself into a long snout. One that ended in a dark nose, set below bright red eyes. And beneath all that… a sight that flushed ice water through my veins. Two long, jagged rows of razor-sharp, canine teeth.
Steady…
There was murder in her eyes. Cold-blooded, uncaring death. Her jaws parted slightly, and her legs coiled beneath her. A second later she sprang, and my entire world disappeared.
Karessa leapt just as I put my hands together. I extended them outward, palms together…
… and pushed.